Ms. Goodman has a BA in History & Art History, and a Masters in Library and Information Studies
both from McGill University, and has done graduate work in Jewish history at Concordia
University as part of the MA in Judaic Studies degree program, where she focused Medieval & Modern
Judaism and her thesis focused on American Jewish History & Southern Jewish History, particularly
Jews life during the Civil War. She also has a DCS in Communications, with an emphasis on the
Fine Arts from Vanier College.

Ms. Goodman had contributed to the news sections of Military History and Vietnam Magazines, and was also the former Editor/Features Editor for the History News Network (HNN), and had
worked for HNN from 2004-2010.

Recent Posts: Together With Israel יחד עם ישראל

ISRAEL POLITICAL BRIEF ISRAEL POLITICAL BRIEF: ISRAEL NEWS PM Netanyahu’s Speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Iran’s Secret Atomic Weapon Sites Source: PMO, 9-27-18 “Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, When I spoke here, three years ago, Israel stood alone among the nations. Of the nearly 200 countries that sit in this hall, only […]

ISRAEL POLITICAL BRIEF ISRAEL POLITICAL BRIEF: ISRAEL NEWS Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Speech claiming Iran is violating nuclear deal Source: Haaretz, 4-30-18 Good evening. Tonight, we’re going to show you something that the world has never seen before. Tonight, we are going to reveal new and conclusive proof of the secret nuclear weapons program […]

ISRAEL POLITICAL BRIEF ISRAEL POLITICAL BRIEF: ISRAEL NEWS Excerpt from PM Netanyahu’s AIPAC Speech Source: PMO, 06/03/2018 “Good morning, AIPAC. It’s always great to be here. But as I told President Trump yesterday, it’s especially great to be in America’s capital now that he has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Thank you, President Trump for […]

ISRAEL POLITICAL BRIEF ISRAEL POLITICAL BRIEF: ISRAEL NEWS PM Netanyahu’s Remarks at the Start of the Weekly Cabinet Meeting 25/12/2016 Source: PMO, 12-25-16 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, made the following remarks: [Translated from Hebrew] “I share ministers’ feelings, anger and frustration vis-à-vis the unbalanced resolution that is […]

ISRAEL POLITICAL BRIEF ISRAEL POLITICAL BRIEF: ISRAEL NEWS U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power’s Full Speech at the Security Council Source: Haaretz, 12-23-16 The full text of Samantha Power’s address to the Security Council concerning the resolution against Israeli settlements. The full text of Samantha Power’s address to the United Nations Security Council concerning […]

Recent Posts: Israel Advocacy סנגור לישראל 101

ISRAEL ADVOCACY 101 ISRAEL & ZIONIST EDUCATION American Historical Association (AHA) rejects anti-Israel resolutions at meeting By Bonnie K. Goodman Government January 5, 2015 Historians gathering at the American Historical Association’s annual meeting in New York City voted on Sunday evening, Jan. 4, 2015 against adding to their agenda a vote on two anti-Israel resolutions with […]

ISRAEL ADVOCACY 101 ISRAEL & ZIONIST EDUCATION Attempted divestment at UCSB and the BDS machine Source: The Jewish Journal of Greater L.A., 5-13-13 Over the last month the UC Santa Barbara student government has been voting on a resolution to divest from companies doing business with Israel….READ MORE

Prominently situated just off the main campus of UC-Berkeley, with which it merged in 2010, it has all the hallmarks of a cutting-edge building: sleek wooden displays made from local re-salvaged elm; floor-to-ceiling glass walls allowing glimpses into the museum’s vast collection of Judaica, the third largest in North America; and a spacious hall for lectures and functions, as well dance, theater and art.

“In the museum model, this accessibility was much harder to achieve,” said Alla Efimova, the Magnes’ director, referring to the collection’s past focus on being more of an art museum than a research and educational facility, as it now primarily sees itself. “The new design was about making the collection accessible and encouraging work with the collection,” she said.

Few doubt that the Magnes’ merger and new home will vastly increase its use, but museum watchers agree that the move comes with some significant costs. Already, Berkeley classes for Jewish studies courses are held weekly in its building. Scholars like Jeffrey Shandler, a professor at Rutgers, are planning not only to use the Magnes’ enormous archives for research, but also to create innovate exhibits based on them.

Not long ago, Shandler began talking with the Magnes’ chief curator, Francesco Spagnolo, about using the archives for a project — likely a book or article — on the Jewish fascination with list making. “He said, ‘This would make a great exhibit,’” Shandler recounted. Now, with the Magnes’ new home having a centrally located gallery, that exhibit is underway, set to open some time later this year.

The new building has been a boon for artists like Emmanuel Witzhum, an Israeli artist-in-residence at Berkeley. He had no plans for an exhibit at the Magnes when he applied to Berkeley, but the museum approached him about exhibiting work. “It was perfect,” he said, “They immediately got the idea.”

Founded 50 years ago by the Bronx-born Jewish educator, Seymour Fromer, the Magnes’ ambitions always exceeded the realities of being a small Jewish museum. Over the years, Fromer and his wife, Rebecca Camhi Fromer, amassed not only the largest archive of Jewish American Western history, but also a treasure trove of exotic Judaica.

Some of the highlights are on view at the Magnes’ inaugural exhibit, titled “The Magnes Effect: Five Decades of Collection.” There is a 19th-century purple velvet wedding dress from Rhodes; a sword given by the Ottoman rulers of Palestine to the Jewish developer, who, in 1892, financed the road connecting Jaffa to Jerusalem; even a century-old ketubah from the Jewish community in Kochi, India.

All these holdings were hard to display in its former home, a cramped residential house in Berkeley, where the museum had been since 1966. “Even Google maps had a hard time giving directions on how to get there,” said Spagnolo, the Magnes’ chief curator.

The Magnes’ new building, along with its merger with Berkeley, has been widely praised by scholars, fundraisers and museum directors alike. As an independent institution until its merger in 2010, the Magnes had limited staff and hours, and found it difficult to preserve and organize its archives. Now that the heart of its collection — the documents of the Jewish American West — sit in the Bancroft Library on campus, accessing them will be considerably easier for scholars.

Moreover, the renovated new building — at 25,000 square feet, roughly three times the size of the collection’s former home — enables it to house 80 percent of its exotic collection of Judaica in-house, not, as it had in the past, in an off-site storage facility. By taking over administrative costs, Berkeley has also cut the Magnes’ annual operating budget in half. Instead of roughly $2 million a year to operate, it will now cost just under $1 million.

But the changes come at a price. Merging the Magnes with a much larger, and secular, institution like Berkeley was never part of Fromer’s vision. He died in 2009, before the decision was made. And the merger only highlights the mishaps and difficult choices the Magnes has had to make simply in order to survive.

“In an ideal situation, it could have remained independent,” said Fred Rosenbaum, another leading scholar of the Jewish American and the West. While acknowledging the ultimate benefits of the merger, he couldn’t help but lament the decision.

“Just a minor caveat,” he said: “There was something wonderful about the old Magnes. There was a kind of feeling in the air of being a part of something special. Now it will be highly efficient, but it won’t have the warmth, the intangible, of being a highly creative independent Jewish institution.”

Perhaps the most important sacrifice Magnes made was the relinquishment of the central item that made it famous in the first place: its collection of Jewish archives of the West. The include the papers of the Haas family, an original owner of Levi Strauss and Company, and many founders of the Bay Area’s Jewish community. All of those documents have been moved to the Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, itself a renowned institution with one of the largest collections of materials relating to the American West.

Many scholars of Jewish history think this is good for Jewish scholarship.

“I think it’s great — it’s better than good,” said Marc Dollinger, chair of the Jewish studies department at San Francisco State University and a leading scholar of Jews in the American West. “It’s better to house [the Jewish West documents] at a research library; it’s more accessible to a wider audience.”

But few deny that the merger was one made out of dire need. A series of inopportune choices, including a hasty merger with the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco in 2002 (that ended a year later), and the purchase of two new buildings — one just before the dot-com crash in 2000, another before the 2008 recession — left the Magnes badly damaged….READ MORE